IMO, the "New Coke" was intended to be a failure. What most people don't realize or think about is that when the New Coke came out, Coka Cola _also_ changed the formulation of the "classic" Coke, to swap in corn syrup instead of sugar. New Coke was nothing more than a smoke screen to get people to not notice the change. One can hardly call Vista a smoke screen. It's just a plain, old failure. period. Sure, it will probably replace XP because people have no other choice, but far too many people will switch to Mac and Linux, thanks to Vista. Who's complaining?

-Jon

In hindsight, I wonder if MS somehow didn't understand their customers? Mac OS X gets attention with its cool features, but I suspect that much of industry would be happy with something much simpler.

Many products are sold with a PC included to operate the hardware and run the custom software. Another big slice of industry is workers running MS Office and little or nothing else. For this huge segment Vista is not attractive, it is a cost. It takes time and money away from product development to adapt to Vista. On top of that Vista brought along a slew of problems.

My guess is that this group would have been happy with a much improved XP. No big changes, just better under the hood. If they also introduced Vista for consumers that would be OK with them.

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Guest wrote:
In hindsight, I wonder if MS somehow didn't understand their customers? Mac OS X gets attention with its cool features, but I suspect that much of industry would be happy with something much simpler.

Exactly why Apple are pursuing Snow Leopard. They just have to be careful about adding new features in an OS that is not meant to have new features, because their details are a bit contradictory at the moment. What a great selling point for an OS - no new features.

I switched on day one and have never had any issue actually caused by MS. It always turned out to be an issue with the third party vendor. Usually fixed within an hour or so by editing a couple of lines of code in the drivers. I don't understand how it is MS's fault that you guys can't operate your own equipment.

Ragging on MS is fun and all, but just because you say something often enough does not make it true. Vista is faster, more stable, looks better...true fact. MS has had plenty of great blunders(Windows ME, MS BoB)but Vista is not one of them.

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Anonymous wrote:
Usually fixed within an hour or so by editing a couple of lines of code in the drivers.

You feel this is an acceptable solution for the average computer user? Editing lines of code in a driver? Are you serious?

I am one of those "switched to linux" people thanks to Vista.

Never thought I'd feel the need to support Microsoft on something, but after just finishing a new PC build with Vista 64, I must say I think it's the best MS OS ever.

I personally use Mac OS at work (media&Graphics), and have two macs at home, plus two PC's. The older PC has XP, which I've always thought was terrible, especially compared to Mac OS, or Linux OS's like Ubuntu - which I also have installed on both PC's and like better than Mac OS or XP.

However, after using Vista 64 I haven't felt the need to boot into Ubuntu once. I even dusted off my 20 some year old HP LaserJet 4M for kicks and plugged it into a USB-Parallel cable and Vista recognized it. I haven't booted one of my Macs for several weeks now.

I suppose if I'd installed Vista before SP1 I might feel differently. XP on my other PC was completely unusable before SP1, after that it worked properly.

That said, there is room for improvement (crappy UAC, programs like msconfig still feel like they're from DOS days not being able to resize the window, etc). However there is a ton of improvement that could be done in Leopard (esp icon/interface wise), and Ubuntu (which has the same problems as other linux distros). They're all works in progress and always will be.

Microsoft has consistently shown a pattern of developing an operating system - pushing it to the Nth degree - and then when it is no longer feasible to patch and update - they release a "new" OS. All the while they are re-hashing the same code. Take, for example, the VERY flawed OLE. Once it was shown to be so laden with bugs and yet un-patchable because it was so intertwined in the OS a "new" product hit the streets using "DCOM". And it was the same story over again.

MS has repeated reused old, buggy, flawed code. This is why more and more users are abandoning MS native apps and the OS altogether. Mac and Linux are both enjoying the VISTA surge - for good reason. They are steady robust operating systems and are gaining ground on otherwise reluctant hardware developers.

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Guest wrote:
I switched on day one and have never had any issue actually caused by MS. It always turned out to be an issue with the third party vendor.

Ford released a new vehicle today which uses square tires. Critics point out that square tires are unavailable in US and foreign markets. However, Ford maintains the lack of square tires is just a 3rd party vendor issue, and it is not indicative of a design flaw.

Vista was the stupidest decision MS ever made - and that's inclusive of WinME! Trying to copy, rather than lead, is clear indication of failure. MS had no need to try to bite into MAC's TINY percentage of the PC market. They already have the lion's share... why try to be MAC? It was a stupid decision. PC users don't want flashy crap on their screens - they want FAST systems which get work done - using their existing S/W and H/W. Somehow MS's voice of the customer panels missed that important fact. Doh!!??!!??

On the other hand, MS proves that they can use their brains when they want to. The Zune went after a BIG market, where Apple was clearly the leader. Now THIS makes sense! There's lots to gain by doing that. Couple that with the fact that the Zune knocks the iPod back into the technological stone age, and you have a winning product. Now, Apple is scrambling to add features to the iPod that came standard on the Gen 1 Zunes: Apple's playing catch-up. Nice move, MS! That's more like it.

Editing drivers - failure
Microsoft certified drives not functional - failure
Asking the enduser if they want to start or load every program multiple times - failure
Bloated and slow - failure

I'm not too sure about what everyone is bitching about. Do you people even use vista? Any of you?
List of OS's I've used: Redhat, Fedora, Mac Os on a 68k to present Mac OS X on intel chipset, Windows 98, Windows ME (POS), Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Ubuntu, Debian, etc etc. The list goes on and on.

People, the UAC and other "fluffy" items can be disabled on Vista. My machine has had zero compatibility problems, and my friends that are using Vista have had no problems as far as compatibility either. The features that usually tick off users that are incorporated on Vista are the security applications. UAC (I disabled this after about 5 minutes).

Vista no doubt is a system hog, but any system that is aesthetically pleasing is. Before you people continue to post about how much Vista sucks, use the operating system for more that 2 hours and give up. Actually look at tweaking it as I did with XP and all other systems before it. Sure it has a lot of bloatware, but it can be easily disabled for the most part.

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JonGl wrote:
IMO, the "New Coke" was intended to be a failure. What most people don't realize or think about is that when the New Coke came out, Coka Cola _also_ changed the formulation of the "classic" Coke, to swap in corn syrup instead of sugar. New Coke was nothing more than a smoke screen to get people to not notice the change...

-Jon

According to Snopes, the change to corn syrup started 5 years before New Coke was released and fully completed 6 months before New Coke was released.

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Guest wrote:
I'm not too sure about what everyone is bitching about. Do you people even use vista?

I've used MS from the days of DOS, including Windows 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista. My laptop came with XP and a free Vista Business upgrade. I ordered the 'upgrade' (what a misnomer) and I setup 2 hard drives - 1 with XP Pro, and the other with Vista Business.

I *tried* to give Vista a chance, but found no amount of tweaking would allow me to get any real work done with it. Besides it running as slow as Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on a 286, it's just a pain in the butt to use! Why any programmer would think it's a "feature" to hide common tasks 2 or 3 clicks DEEPER is beyond me. Try doing even a simple search, and you'll be clicking all day... there's menu after menu after menu layered on top of everything. It's just plain stupid. If you ever WERE productive, you can kiss that goodbye with Vista under the hood. No more "click, and done". Now it's "click, pull-down, click, click, another menu, click, some stupid animated dog scratching it's butt, click, security question, click, and now you're done".

After 2 weeks of trying to like Vista, I wiped the Vista HD and put it back into my "spares" pile. No thanks MS. Even FREE, you can't get me to use it. God only knows what would possess someone to actually purchase the OS.

I'm sure the people who 'think' they actually like Vista are complete noobs, and/or are "surf & email" users. Anyone who knows what they are doing, or uses a PC to do real work, cannot possibly say it's an improved OS.

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Guest wrote:
I'm not too sure about what everyone is bitching about. Do you people even use vista? Any of you?
List of OS's I've used: Redhat, Fedora, Mac Os on a 68k to present Mac OS X on intel chipset, Windows 98, Windows ME (POS), Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Ubuntu, Debian, etc etc. The list goes on and on.

People, the UAC and other "fluffy" items can be disabled on Vista. My machine has had zero compatibility problems, and my friends that are using Vista have had no problems as far as compatibility either. The features that usually tick off users that are incorporated on Vista are the security applications. UAC (I disabled this after about 5 minutes).

Vista no doubt is a system hog, but any system that is aesthetically pleasing is. Before you people continue to post about how much Vista sucks, use the operating system for more that 2 hours and give up. Actually look at tweaking it as I did with XP and all other systems before it. Sure it has a lot of bloatware, but it can be easily disabled for the most part.

Would you rather buy a hamburger with everything on it and scrape off the stuff you don't want, or buy one plain and add what you want?

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Guest wrote:
Vista no doubt is a system hog, but any system that is aesthetically pleasing is.

That's kind of the main point here, though.

New versions of OS X actually makes old hardware (1-2 years old) run faster than it did with the OS it originally came with.

That's a big contrast to Vista, which really wants the newest hardware to be able to run well. I'm sure Vista works just fine, but this is a pretty stark contrast here.

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Guest wrote:
Vista is faster, more stable, looks better...true fact.

That's a true lie:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531-11.html
"Windows Vista clearly is not a great new performer... Overall, applications...executed slightly slower than under Windows XP... There are some programs that showed deeply disappointing performance...CPU-intensive applications such as video transcoding...performed 18% to nearly 24% slower in our standard benchmark scenarios. Both benchmarks finished much quicker under Windows XP... Our hopes that Vista might be able to speed up applications are gone"

http://www.pcworld.com/article/128305/lab_tests_vistas_fast_if_you_have_the_hardware.html
"Vista is generally slower than XP... Apps run slower on the 64-bit version of Vista"

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Guest wrote:
Couple that with the fact that the Zune knocks the iPod back into the technological stone age, and you have a winning product.

Congratulations--that's one of the stupidest article comments I've ever read on MacObserver.

Here's your friend--even he's giving up:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/07/zune-tattoo-guy.html

87% of the professional enterprise IT people must be wrong!

That has been my experience as well. Had it not been for some noisy fans, I would still be using my G4 tower which ran 10.4 amazingly well!

I though I was the only one that noticed Coke changed from sugar to Corn Syrup during the New Coke switch out. I agree. I'm positive this is why Coke introduced New Coke. It "cleansed" our palettes of the original flavor long enough, that we didn't have anything to compare it to after the switch, except for the awful new formula. Being a Coke-a-holic myself, I noticed the flavor difference immediately and went from drinking 6-10 cokes a day to drinking zero. I switched to Dr. Pepper.

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deasys wrote:

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Guest wrote:
Couple that with the fact that the Zune knocks the iPod back into the technological stone age, and you have a winning product.

Congratulations--that's one of the stupidest article comments I've ever read on MacObserver.

Here's your friend--even he's giving up:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/07/zune-tattoo-guy.html

Thanks. I thought I was the only one who noticed that moronic comment slipped into an otherwise intelligent post.

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Guest wrote:
Being a Coke-a-holic myself, I noticed the flavor difference immediately and went from drinking 6-10 cokes a day to drinking zero. I switched to Dr. Pepper.

6-10 soft drinks a day???

Do you weigh 300 lbs+?

The question is not whether individual users have had problems, but the huge enterprise market. Does Vista play well in a mixed XP/Vista environment? Does Vista run the current software? What hardware upgrades are necessary with the shift?

If large companies, that buy computers in batches of several hundred at a time, can keep their current software, and keep buying economical equipment that gets the job done, then they'll gradually switch to Vista.

What the large corporation for whom I work has found is that changing to Vista would have to be done on around 20,000 workstations, along with changes to the custom software necessary to keep the place going. Given the software changes necessary, they'd have to do everything at once....at least that's the current thinking. Whether or not individual users have found no compatibility issues, my point is that my corporation certainly has, and with quite a few mission critical software items. We're still buying machines with XP, and looking at alternatives to future "upgrades". I don't know what the alternatives are, but I'm pretty certain they don't include the Mac OS....a change there would involve all new hardware plus software so is completely out of the question.

My point is that, for large corporations, it's not just a matter of buying a few tens of thousands of copies of Vista, throwing 'em on the machines, and announcing a Software Upgrade Party Day. It's also compatibility testing and modifying a lot of custom software that is running fine on what they have. Those costs probably dwarf the costs of Vista alone. All this comes off the bottom line. That's why enterprise hasn't switched over 18 months after introduction.

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Guest wrote:
PC users don't want flashy crap on their screens - they want FAST systems which get work done - using their existing S/W and H/W. Somehow MS's voice of the customer panels missed that important fact. Doh!!??!!??

In my opinion, Apple may not have gotten the same fact upon the release of Mac OS X.

This is exactly why I:

1. Stayed with Windows XP. It is far more stable, simpler, compatible with more programs, and doesn't eat up my graphics card and processor. I like a fast computer, not a computer that overdoes itself just to try to impress me.

2. Stayed with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. Leopard is a great system! Please don't take that the wrong way. I stayed with Tiger due to the fact that Leopard takes away the fun and usefulness of the Classic Environment, and adds far too many moving, flashing, and eye-blinding graphics, and adds so many features that I eventually will forget how to use the System. I just need something that helps me work with older applications, just displays a list of files and folders (I don't care if it looks good. Just do it!), and makes me focus more on System usage.

3. Stayed with Classic Mac OS at the exact same time. Mac OS X is a very good system, introducing many useful features and development opportunities. However, the one thing about it that annoys me is how the UNIX core and eye-candy can take away so much more processing power than a simple-graphics, Mac OS-based system. What I want is a simple task to be done quickly, not in style. Such an example is the minimize effect compared to WindowShade. The Minimize effect looks good, but it looks too good. What I want is a window hidden the instant I tell it to. Mac OS X's minimize effect tries to impress my eyes for one second, and then has window hidden. WindowShade just hides the window (in far less than a second), and I'm happy.

I believe this is why Snow Leopard will have a lesser amount of new features added. In my opinion, as more flashy features are added, they just suck up more CPU, and degrade performance overtime.